Impressed by rods

[Trainz]

No you perv, the OTHER kind.

I just discovered while going through the rods section of the DMG that some of them do not have powers themselves, but can be used to metamagically enhance spells a few times per day.

I think this is brilliant, and proceeded to include one such rod in the treasure hoard of our next game. I was so excited by this discovery that I drew a rod with paint shop (which will be the prop I'll use when giving my PC the rod):

 

[Impeesa]

Metamagic rods are cool. I believe they're reprinted from Tome & Blood...

 

[Rel]

Before you go handing out a Rod of Sculpting, read this thread and formulate an opinion:

http://www.enworld.org/forums/showthread.php?t=70740

 

[Trainz]

Before you go handing out a Rod of Sculpting, read this thread and formulate an opinion:

Hmmmm... indeed. Very interesting.

IMC's we never even glanced at the feat. But when you stop to think about it (like the thread you showed me), it is indeed very potent...

I'll make sure I don't hand out that rod, thanks for the heads up.

To stay on topic, what other experiences have you had with metamagic rods in your campaigns ?

 

[Joshua Randall]

Craft Rod is one of the better item creation feats. I drool for the day my wizard can craft a rod of thunder and lightning. (I'm also hankering for a ring of the ram - go figure - I like the weird stuff.)

A rod of metamagic quicken is very, very powerful. Be careful with that one.

 

[Rel]

To stay on topic, what other experiences have you had with metamagic rods in your campaigns ?

Regardless of whether the Sculpt Spell feat is broken or not, I've learned one thing about the metamagic rods: If you don't have a somewhat steady stream of encounters, they quickly begin to be overpowered.

I'm GMing a party into the mid to upper levels (most of the party is now 9th) for the first time since starting to play 3E. Up to this point, most of the enocounters I've run have been at or somewhat above the party's CR but I also rarely had them take on more than one such encounter per day (there have been plenty of exceptions to this but it's been the general rule).

But recently this has been a problem because the party Wizard has utterly dominated most of the combats. Why? Because he has a Sculpt Spell rod (lesser). He has been able to use it to Lightning Cube most of the baddies on the field a couple or three times. One of the main limitations on the rod is that you can only use it three times a day. But most of the time he hasn't needed it that many times and so it isn't really a limitation.

I've recently gotten this through my thick skull and I'll be remedying that problem going forward (providing more frequent encounters so that he needs to shepherd the use of the rod a bit more) but it's an issue you should probably keep an eye on. Good luck.

 

[Felix]

How would you guys analyze a Rod of Heightening for power... it ups the saving throw for each level you heighten. So maybe the rod could look like this:

Rod of Heightening
Ability: This rod contains a set of spell levels [Weak: 3, Moderate: 5, Strong: 7] that can be applied to as many or as few spells cast as the caster wishes. Meaning a Wizard with a Weak Rod of Heightening could raise the effective spell level of three spells by one, or one spell by three, or one spell by one level and another spell by two levels. The Rod's metamagic refreshes every 24 hours.

This makes for higher DC's when you really need the target to fail, but in that case you can't do it all day long... only once. Is this too powerful? What kind of price would go on here?

 

[Ridley's Cohort]

Regardless of whether the Sculpt Spell feat is broken or not, I've learned one thing about the metamagic rods: If you don't have a somewhat steady stream of encounters, they quickly begin to be overpowered.

It is predictable that the wizard will get a relative power boost if you typically have few combats per day. Metamagic rods enhance this effect but are hardly the only problem item, e.g. Bead of Karma.

 

[Gez]

Yep. 1-2 combats a day, the wizard is impressive. 4-5 combats a day, the wizard weeps. 6-8 combats a day, no wizard in the party.

 

[bensei]

BTW. Is it true that all metamagic rods weigh 5 pd.?
A standard Sor/Wiz will have a hard time carrying around rods and still stay light encumbered. This can be thought of a balancing issue, given the encumberance rules are applied correctly.